Aero Performance with 30" Display

[Ph00]

I keep seeing a decline in Aero desktop performance since switching from Photoshop CS2 to CS5 64bit and Firefox 3 to Firefox 4. I know both programs use Direct 2D to help render the windows contents faster on the screen on top of vista using the GPU to render everything on the screen.

I get several Vista warning messages per day when my video driver crashes. Switching and opening windows in Photoshop is slow and even just using Firefox 4 sometimes causes my video driver to crash.

I'm wondering if I need to replace my video card for a better one or if I can make some settings changes to help improve performance. I don't play any games on the machine only work so I think the specs are adequate for what I do but maybe with all these programs using Direct 2D I need a better card.

My system specs are:
Vista 64
Core 2 Duo 3ghz
8gb ram
GeForce gt 240 (stock clock settings)
- 512mb vram
- driver ver: 258.96
30" cinema display

I opened the nv monitor and just typing out this post my GPU temp is 158F I'm not sure if that high or not.

If the card is the culprit any recommendations on something that will make the desktop windows render as fast as f**ing possible? I cant take this lag anymore.

 

[tommylommykins]

I don't think your graphics card is too old for aero. It's a relatively modern card, and should be able to run aero without breaking a sweat.

You have said that switching between programs has become slow. Usually when this happens, it's because something is using up all the main-memory in you system. How confident are you that you don't have any malware running? Do you run regular virus scans? I think it is much more likely that such slowdowns will be caused by evil software rather than dying hardware.

When was the last time you reinstalled your operating system? It's often a quick fix for this sort of problem.

 

[Ph00]

System is clean no malware or viruses. I usually have about 2gb free ram with all the programs running. No page file so its not wasting time writing to the hard disk. Plus I only notice problems with either Photoshop CS5 and now firefox 4. All other programs have normal performance.

Is 158F for idle too hot for the GPU?

 

[Silenus]

...Is 158F for idle too hot for the GPU?

IDLE?! That is 70C and is quite hot for idle. The card could very well be getting to hot under some load and crashing.

Open up your system and:
- Is the fan on the card running?
- Is the fan heatsink clogged with dust? If so blow it out with compressed air.
- After both the above possibly remove heatsink from card, clean components and reapply good thermal compound.

 

[Kenmitch]

Is 158F for idle too hot for the GPU?

That does seem to be on the high side 70*C at idle. What does it climb to if you load the gpu down?

What kinda case are you using? Could be an airflow problem as the higher the internal case temp the higher your gpu will idle at.

 

[Ph00]

Fan / heatsink are clean. Im using one of those Lian Li cases that looks like a MacPro case

http://www.fatwallet.com/static/attachments/75405_lian_licase.jpg

here is a screen shot of my nv fan settings.. its on Auto so I assume it should try and not let itself overheat

http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/3586/ss1m.png

 

[Ph00]

with the fan setting on manual / 100% the gpu idle temp is 135F

 

[Silenus]

Put a load on the CPU and see what the temp does and how quickly it rises. Furmark would be a quick test but will be an artificially higher load than you would normally get.

Perhaps grab one of the 3d mark benches and log the temp.

Sent from my Thunderbolt via Tapatalk...

 

[Ferzerp]

System is clean no malware or viruses. I usually have about 2gb free ram with all the programs running. No page file so its not wasting time writing to the hard disk. Plus I only notice problems with either Photoshop CS5 and now firefox 4. All other programs have normal performance.

Is 158F for idle too hot for the GPU?

Try not to take offense at this, but that you think this is a good idea makes me suspect there are probably other things that you may have "fixed" that are coming in to play as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My Gigabyte GTX460 1GB OC card is at 69C right now, and that's under full load with F@H running on the GPU, as well as FF 4.

Something is wrong with your card or your rig.

 

[Cerb]

Try not to take offense at this, but that you think this is a good idea makes me suspect there are probably other things that you may have "fixed" that are coming in to play as well.

Try not to take offense at this, but Windows runs just fine without a page file, despite the naysayers. Anyone who thinks it is just as responsive with one as without, either uses an SSD, doesn't have more RAM than they can use (practical requirement), restarts their computer every day, or only runs applications in very short bursts, rather than leaving them open until MS has a severe vulnerability patch that requires a reboot. A few programs written badly does not make for doom and gloom. MS' opinion seems to be (reading between the lines) that users are stupid, and HDD space is cheap, both of which are usually true.

After fixing Firefox 4's bad UI (active stop button add-on, enable menu bar, which isn't replaced, as they just copied IE), it has been far faster than FF 3.6.x, on an otherwise similar computer to the OP's (but GTX 460 1GB for a video card).

If the GT 240 is passive, 70C might be OK, but IMO, run some stress tests, and keep a temp and speed monitor up (basically, install and run MSI Afterburner), to see if it gets so hot it throttles, or maybe it's not even going out of low power mode. if it were staying clocked low, or ping-ponging around in speed, it would make sense that those apps would be slowed down by that. Another possibility would be lack of VRAM, but I doubt FF would use that much.

 

[betasub]

If the GT 240 is passive

OP mentions that he has checked the fan & tested at 100%fan speed = not passive.